The Celts are being erased from history

I AM very concerned and puzzled even by a trend I have noticed over recent years – especially on BBC history programmes on TV. There seems to be a great reluctance (absence even) to use the term Celtic.

Nowadays the early human occupation of these islands, in order, is described as: Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Romans and AngloSaxon. What has happened to my ancestors, the Celts?

It makes me very suspicious when the first actual people here are Romans and Saxons. No wonder so many of the English presenters can point at ancient structures and say “built by our ancestors” when their actual ancestors were at that time still scratching their bottoms in north Germany while wondering how to build a boat to cross the North Sea.

Two programmes this week have caused me to write this letter. The first one was about the Outer Hebrides when the presenter (pointing at some ancient field patterns) said “these fields have been farmed by Neolithic farmers and Vikings”. He actually said this to a local man who had just quoted some Gaelic sayings to him.

The second one was an archaeologist at a dig in England who spent about 15 minutes talking about an Iron Age (and clearly Celtic) shield without once mentioning the ethnicity of the makers.

In an earlier programme the presenter described (King?) Arthur as “completely mythical”. That was wrong, although he was not actually a king he was a British Celtic Penteulu or war chief.

Perhaps it is easier to say he was “completely mythical” than to accept the real Arthur was a real Celtic hero who fought and was mortally wounded circa 500AD while opposing the Saxon English.

I well remember listening to a lecture on Arthur while studying successfully for my degree in Geography, History and Welsh History at

Aberystwyth University. Clem Thomas Dafen, Llanelli